Winona Ryder

Winona Laura Horowitz aka Winona Ryder is an American actress probably most famous for her role in “Heathers,” though she has been in many projects, including “Beetlejuice," “Lucas,” “Girl, Interrupted,” “A Scanner Darkly” and “Edward Scissorhands.”

Winona Ryder is Forever Fine

Winona Ryder is named after the place of her birth – the town of Winona. Her nickname is Noni. When she was seven, she moved with her family to a commune north of San Francisco and had no electricity or television. Her godfather was Timothy Leary. “My parents really instilled this idea in me of being your own person – almost to the extent that I couldn’t do wrong.” The family later moved to Petaluma, California, but she wasn’t used to living in suburbia.

Winona Ryder was bullied and even assaulted at school. “We had just moved to this town, so I didn’t have any friends.” From 12 on, she was home-schooled. Her mother enrolled her at the American Conservatory Theatre and she made her first film in 1986, “Lucas.” She chose the last name of Ryder due to her father’s favorite artist Mitch Ryder.

She was once engaged to actor Johnny Deep. He even had a tattoo of her name, but after they broke up, he had it say “Wino forever.” Winona later dated Dave Pirner from Soul Asylum and Matt Damon.

In 2001, however, Winona Ryder was charged with shoplifting, and her journey through the legal process always made the news. She was sentenced to 480 hours of community service and three years’ probation. She said, “I think a lot of people think that is what sort of sent me off in another direction, but I was actually starting to have some trouble a few years before.” She added, “In a weird way, it was…like the best thing that could have happened. Before I’d never asked myself the question of ‘Is it okay if I’m not going to act?’” Since then, she’s been in smaller parts, such as “Black Swan” and “Star Trek.”

She’s now picky about jobs. “I am very happy in my life, very interested in other things. So it takes something special. I’m not interested in playing the girl that’s just there to make the guy, you know, give him a talking to.”